Embodied Education: A Pathway Towards More Integrated Learning

The Impact of Dualist Thinking

It is claimed that the foundations of modern formal schooling system were laid down during the reformation phase in Europe in the sixteenth century (Boyd, 1947). That era was also the time of development of physical science in the West, which was majorly based on the methodology of objectivity. Objective scientific methods hold the idea that results or experiments should not be influenced or biased by the subjectivity of the scientist such as particular perspectives, judgements, biases or personal interests (Reiss & Sprenger, 2020). This view was backed by Descartes’ dualism. Descartes assumed that knowledge is qualified to be true only when it could be verified objectively. He made the difference between two kinds of substances: matter and mind, in which matter has the essential property of spatial extension, whereas the mind has the essential property of thinking (Robinson, 2017). He conceived the mind as ‘who knows (subject)’ and matter as ‘what is to be known (object)’, and argued that both exist and perform their functions independently. This assumption gave rise to a sharp distinction between subjects and objects, as the subject is endowed with mind and objects have no mind. Further, the mind was considered as something transcendental and having all the thinking powers, whereas the body was distinct from mind and just a worldly object. This influenced the educational practices of that period to treat mind and body as completely distinct entities.

This line of thinking diminished the importance of learner’s subjectivity and gave rise to the development of an objective common curriculum for students, which had no space for a learner’s state of mind and the subjective realm of a learner. It resulted in a system which gave more importance to the common curriculum and teacher-centric education, and this is called the ‘banking model of education’ by Paulo Freire. The characteristic of this model is that the teacher is seen as the active subject and students as merely passive objects. Through this analogy, Freire (2005, 71), strongly criticised the existing dissociated model of education, where ‘his [the teacher’s] task is to “fill” the students with the contents of his narration—contents which are detached from reality, disconnected from the totality that engendered them and could give them significance’. He argued that the teacher gives someone else’s knowledge and the knowledge is about objects which also belong to others or exist in the external environment. In this process, the gap between students and the world gets strengthened, and the students are excluded from their own inquiry and are simply, in Freire’s words, ‘filed away’. It is important to note that due to the over-reliance on objective truth, the education system overlooked the importance of multiple perspectives and subjectivity of learners, and the sharp division between subject and object resulted in a strong feeling of alienation with the world.

Here, it is important to understand why and how this alienation emerges in children? Paul Bloom aptly points out that initial experiences of the children make them perceive worldly things on dualistic lines (Bloom, 2005). It means that children from the very beginning start to develop a differentiation between their internal realm and external realm. This happens due to their initial experiences in the world. They interact with the objects, play with toys and control them. This gives a sense of duality, where some things (object) can be controlled by them (subject) as the controller. Over the course of time, we become a victim of much societal conditioning to be a dualist, as we become disposed to look at tangible things in terms of objects (even the body as it is controlled) and intangible subjects (minds). This sense of differentiation gives rise to the conception of separateness with the world, and hence we fail to recognise the importance of the surroundings (including body) in our overall cognitive activities. Owing to this, children from the very beginning start feeling dissociated and alienated from the world, resulting in the creation of a ‘thick psychological boundary’ between the world and oneself (Albahari, 2006). Without such a boundary, humans would not have looked at nature as something to be controlled or conquered, and engaged in the continuing techno-industrial onslaught on the biosphere. Further, this psychological boundary acts as a barrier to realise the role of the environment in one’s overall mental processes and may hinder the learning process. This is the result of looking at subject and object as sharply divided and considering knowledge as something absolutely objective. Dissociation of the learner with their surrounding learning environment leads to the notion that learning happens only when we consciously grasp the information, which eventually results in the habit of cramming of facts without being thoughtful or experiencing the relevant knowledge. This alienation results in denying children the opportunity to explore on their own and makes them prone to feed on information without fully understanding it.

When a child imbibes the notion that learning is something that happens only in classrooms, it gives rise to a restricted or even distorted notion of learning. This is exacerbated with the exam-oriented and achievement-based system of education. The exam-oriented education is not conducive for developing critical thinking, because it works in a very restricted framework and encourages the notion that learning is a tool for getting marks or to make achievements in the marks-based competitions. In this set-up, every problem is seen as with a fixed correct solution, and students learn to identify the answers without thinking much about various ways to approach it. This process does not nurture exploratory mindset in students, because learning is seen only as a means to achieve more marks or higher grades. What is encouraged is to become ambitious, and doing well in the examinations is seen as a major route to excel in life. Students tend to connect their achievements with marks or grades obtained in the examinations, making the whole process competitive. Happiness is seen as arising out of success in accumulating more and more, and such an education system does not leave much scope for nurturing qualities such as compassion, empathy and integrity. In fact, there are some studies which show that linking of marks with achievement encourages cheating in examinations (Kirkpatrick & Zang, 2011).

Treating learning as instrumental to marks-based achievement does not guarantee qualities such as open-mindedness and critical thinking, and therefore, it amounts to a fundamental flaw in the process of education. It is reasonable to hold that most humans do not undertake inquiry as a matter of habit but only when there is a reward for undertaking it. In other words, normally, we are carried away by what is called the gut feeling of certainty. As Kahneman (2011:97) puts it, ‘we are rarely stumped in our mental life’. That is to say, normally we get easily convinced of our beliefs without undertaking any inquiry into their truth. When the educational system treats learning as a tool for achievement, it cannot nurture qualities such as open-mindedness or curiosity. Furthermore, some studies show that current mainstream education encourages authoritarian structure (Hundal, 2014). It becomes the moral duty of students to obey their teachers, and there is not much freedom for students to think freely and develop skills beyond a fixed curriculum. Conformity becomes the norm and the social set-up which worships success does not encourage free thinking. This scenario is against the spirit of developing critical thinking and open-mindedness in children, which has been advocated by many thinkers such as John Dewey and Bertrand Russell (Hare, 1999).

If we briefly survey some of the ancient education systems, it can be inferred that educational practices in ancient times were more integrated, holistic and activity based. Although they did not explicitly conceive the body as a necessary component for learning, it can be surmised on the basis of their practices that education at that time had an underlying assumption that humans, environment and their experiences are interrelated. For instance, Aristotle looked at education through both reason and habit. He conceived learning as a process of doing. He clearly mentions in Nicomachean Ethics, Book II—‘What we need to learn before doing, we learn by doing’ (Crisp, 2004). Similarly, the Buddhist system of education gave much importance to ‘contemplation’ after reading any text and identified a four-phase learning sequence comprising study, contemplation, meditation and action (Grossenbacher & Parkin, 2006). However, those educational practices were far away from being perfect. For instance, everybody was not even allowed to come and study in ancient Gurukuls in India. But, when we realise that the contemporary education system fails to nurture essential qualities such as open-mindedness, critical thinking and connection with nature, it becomes important to look into what was valuable in ancient practices that can still be adopted.

It is reasonable to hold that the current mainstream education system does not pay much attention to the totality of human life. With increasing knowledge base to transmit, the focus gets shifted to the amount of knowledge accumulated. Further, the aim is primarily to get reward by doing well in examinations and so on, and life itself is conceptualised as a journey of achieving more and more. There is hardly any scope for asking fundamental questions about the meaning of life or the nature of the self. Further, there is rarely any training imparted to make students feel viscerally connected to nature. Even if some efforts are made such as nature camps, they do not matter much given the overall aim of doing well in exams, and therefore their influence remains marginal. This gives rise to a dull, dissociated and one-way learning environment. As noted earlier, the authoritarian structure encourages conformity, and students rarely start questioning the assumptions about themselves and remain ambitious individuals whose attention is focused on achieving more and more. There is hardly any attempt to know the nature of the inner life and how various psychological processes operate, and make us do many things or pursue a particular way of life. In other words, in the whole process of education, not much attention is given to the mind of the learner. Since a sharp distinction is made between the subject and the object, arising out of mind–matter dualism, and education is conceived as a matter of filling objective knowledge in the mind of subjects, there is no scope for looking into the nature of the mind and how it interacts with the world in knowledge formation. As a result, the inner life remains grossly neglected. We do not give much importance to understand the mind of the learner, because the focus is to fill the mind with more and more information. But we need to realise that the totality of human being encompasses the mind, body and the world. We need to understand that while a subject is necessary, it is not the sufficient condition for knowledge creation. Subjects and objects are not in a water-tight compartment but as subsets of a larger whole. It is the interaction of the subject with objects which creates knowledge. To overcome this underlying false assumption of subject–object dichotomy (Ergas, 2017), we need to reconstruct the education system keeping the ‘mind’ of the student at the centre of curriculum and pedagogy.

As pointed out earlier, the current educational system presupposes a sharp division between subject and object which, in turn, assumes that mind and body are separate things. This particular picture of human nature as a person endowed with both body and mind plays a significant role in many of the institutions which humans have made, including education. In other words, the educational system presupposes a particular conception of human nature, and this may underlie some of the problems that afflict educational practice. Hence, it is important to inquire whether this particular conception of what it is to be a human being holds good in the light of advances made in the scientific study of cognition. In fact, the question of what it is to be a human being does not figure much in the policy discussions on education. Though some documents do refer to some findings about brain development, recent advancements in cognitive sciences are yet to make a proper impact on educational practices.

Even though education as a process is closely related to the nature of a human being, it appears that the role of assumptions about human nature in shaping educational practices has not received sufficient scholarly attention. It is evident in the above discussion that some of the major problems with our current education system arise partly because we have overlooked what is human nature, or we have not undertaken a rigorous examination into our assumptions about human nature. Though some developments in the field of cognitive science challenge mind–body dualism and subject–object dichotomy, they are yet to make a proper impact on the way educational processes are understood. We need to realise that human beings and the world do not exist apart from each other; they exist in constant interaction. As Freire (2005, 50) puts it, ‘one cannot conceive of objectivity without subjectivity’. It is important that efforts are made to revoke the sharp distinction between mind and body and between subject and object to make our educational practice more integrated, inclusive and student-centric. This, in turn, requires investigating our underlying assumptions about human nature.

Understanding Human Nature

The question ‘what is it to be a human being?’ was a major topic of discussion in Greek, Indian and Chinese philosophies for long (Crisp, 2004; Srivastava, 2010; Yang, 2019). It is primarily an attempt to find out what are the essential features of a human being. Human nature can be roughly defined as ‘fundamental dispositions and traits of humans’ (Duignan, 2016). It can be summed up as the bundle of fundamental characteristics which humans are said to possess. It can include inherent as well as acquired qualities which all humans are expected to share. For instance, if mind and body are two aspects of a human being, then all humans are expected to be endowed with mind and body. It becomes an essential part of what it is to be a human being. Some hold that by nature, human beings are selfish and cruel and it is only in the context of a society that these traits get controlled. These kinds of speculations about human nature have been common and, in our times, several empirical studies shed light on the age-old questions regarding the nature of a human being. Evolutionary biology and the interdisciplinary field of cognitive science are the most important areas which are directly relevant to the question of human nature. In this vast domain of research, we will mainly focus on two issues related to human nature, namely, ‘mind–body relationship’ and ‘nature versus nurture’ because they have direct implications for education.

Relationship Between Mind and Body

The relation between mind and body has been debated since ancient times. As Stevenson et al. (2018) observed, the mind–body dualism was a traditional metaphysical doctrine about human nature. Dualism holds that both mental and physical properties are real and have an independent existence and human beings are uniquely endowed with mind. The roots of dualist view towards mind and body can be found in Plato’s Phaedo (Robinson, 2017). Plato believed that the true substances are not physical bodies, which are ephemeral, but the eternal ‘forms’ of which bodies are imperfect copies. These forms not only make the world possible, but they also make it intelligible because they perform the role of universals. This dualist approach was further developed by many philosophers, especially by Rene Descartes in the seventeenth century. Dualist philosophers, in general, hold that mind and body are two entities integral to human beings, but there are disagreements regarding whether they are independent substances or only two properties of the same substance. Descartes held that mind and body are independent substances and he gave more importance to mind by arguing that we can conceive of ourselves without a body, but we can never think of ourselves without the mind (Descartes, 2006). This is because even conceiving of ourselves without mind is an act of mind and thereby implies the existence of mind. Descartes even derived his own existence from the indubitable fact that he was thinking in the famous dictum ‘I think, therefore I exist’.

Mind–body dualism, in its various forms, has played a significant role in shaping educational practices. As we have discussed earlier, a sharp distinction between subject and object, and humans and nature results from a dualist approach. Education becomes primarily an activity of filling the mind with knowledge of the world. Alienation from nature becomes the norm because nature is not ‘minded’ and therefore distinct from the subjects. With the Industrial Revolution, human beings started tasting success in the quest to control nature and education became a tool in this endeavour. The enlightenment notion of progress in this world, in contrast with the religious concern with the afterlife, has been another important factor giving rise to a system of education which focuses on competition and achievement. Further, when abstract reason is treated as the source of knowledge which has to guide all socio-political activity, education becomes an activity intended to train reason for meeting particular ends without any consideration for feelings, or even bodily processes such as sensory perception.

Dualist accounts of mind are primarily based on intuition or the way things appear to us. Of late there have been different types of empirical studies shedding light on the age-old questions regarding the nature of mind, the way knowledge is acquired and so on. The embodied approach to cognition holds that mental phenomena arise out of bodily experience. If materialists hold only physical properties to be real and idealists consider only mental properties as real, the embodied approach accepts both as real. Both have real existence, though bodily states may be called primary. That means, there is no absolute discontinuity between mind and body. Realising the continuity between mind and body helps in bridging the rift between nature and nurture as well.

The Debate of Nature Versus Nurture

The nature versus nurture debate is centred around the question of whether a particular aspect of human behaviour is the product of a person’s gene or acquired through environmental influences. Nature is what we think as genetic and pre-wired inherited features, whereas nurture is generally taken as the acquired qualities through the influence of environmental factors. It is indisputable that we get knowledge of the external world through our sensory organs but, to what extent are we dependent on our sensory organs to get knowledge? Philosophical discussions over this question gave rise to two streams of thoughts, namely, rationalism and empiricism. Rationalists claim that knowledge is innate, and therefore knowledge is independent of any experience. Whereas empiricists claim that sensory experience is the ultimate source of our knowledge and concepts (Markie, 2017). Empiricists argued more towards gaining knowledge through experience, whereas rationalists are inclined towards hidden power in oneself. Modern rationalists such as Descartes argued that humans have innate ideas in their mind (Smith, 2018). Followers of this standpoint believe that most, if not all, behaviours, characteristics and knowledge are the results of inheritance. Whereas empiricist philosopher John Locke advocated the idea of ‘blank slate’ in which he argued that humans acquire almost all of their traits through ‘nurture’ (Uzgalis, 2020). It means that all behavioural traits and knowledge in a human are the result of experiences gained and through environmental conditioning.

Positions on nature versus nurture have today become less extreme with most theorists accepting that both ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’ are important in overall human development (Ridley, 2003). With the advent of empirical studies in psychology, biology and allied disciplines, the divide between nature and nurture has become blurred. There are many empirical pieces of evidence which show the importance of both nature and nurture (genetic and environmental) in the formation of a complete human being. Certainly, genes of a child play an important role in his/her physical properties, and congenital abnormalities can limit or enhance a child’s ability to learn, but we cannot overlook the environmental factors which help in the development and expression of those genes. Although we do not have any control over the genetic selection, our behaviours exerted by genetic expressions greatly depend upon our lifestyle. Genetic expressions are heavily influenced by environmental factors through epigenetic modifications (Sah et al., 2018). Epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in gene expressions without any change in the respective DNA sequence. It basically tries to understand the change in phenotype without any change in genotype. Epigenetic mechanisms regulate the structure and expression of genes through non-genetic reasons such as environmental influences. Various researches in epigenetics now show that biological processes are controlled by the expression of inherited genes and environmental conditions together. Hence, we are not simply a result of either nature or nurture but rather a combination of both.

Implications for Educational Practice

Mind–body and nature–nurture debates have considerable implications for educational practices. The view that mind and body are separate things leads to a sharp distinction between the subject and the object and, as a result, knowledge is seen as objective and not dependent on any individual. This notion of absolute objectivity does not leave any room for the notion of constructing knowledge. The result of this standpoint is the belief that learning involves the direct transfer of information to the learner. The underlying assumption is that children come to the world devoid of any knowledge and their minds are blank slates or empty vessels which have to be filled. This view makes the whole educational practice solely about one-way knowledge transmission. The dualist approach holds a conception of mind as something separate from the rest of the body and the surrounding environment. As a result, students start to see a sharp difference in ‘thinking’ and ‘doing’, associated with ‘mind’ and ‘body’, respectively. Education becomes centred on mental activity with body and environment playing a marginal role. For instance, mainstream school education often makes a sharp separation between ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ and gives more importance to theory. Since ‘practice’ is primarily a bodily matter, it becomes secondary as far as education is concerned.

Similarly, the nature–nurture debate has significantly influenced educational approaches. Are children born with inherent intelligence, ability to learn and personality traits? Or does the learning environment, the method in which we educate children, have the ability to make drastic changes? These questions are of direct relevance to the way children are treated, and pedagogical styles are devised. If we accept ‘nature’ as more important, then knowledge is treated as innate, and the importance of environmental factors get neglected. Similarly, if ‘nurture’ is treated as central, then all focus is on providing the right environment, and the nature of the students with their innate abilities get neglected. The debate, in its extreme form, assumes a strong dichotomy between inherited traits and acquired traits. As long as a sharp separation is maintained between the subject and the environment, either nature or nurture will be seen as more important. As noted earlier, today, the debate is more concerned with the relative contribution of both aspects, which forms the basis of various human behaviours. In the educational set-up, it is important to appreciate both factors in designing the process of learning for children. It can be argued that there are inherent qualities in every child, but providing environmental conditions is essential to harness a child’s natural abilities. A teacher may create a learning environment that is optimised to enhance learning and make it a little easier. An integrated and holistic approach is required for the overall development of children, where the focus should be on enhancing one’s natural mental abilities (nature) and providing facilities for active participation in the environment (nurture).

A binary approach to mind and body results in adopting a polarised position in the nature–nurture debate. If mind and body are distinct things, then mind, at birth, is either filled with knowledge (as rationalists held) or a blank state (as empiricists held). This means that a middle position in the mind–body debate can support a similar position in the nature–nurture debate as well. An embodied approach to cognition has gained wide acceptance in the field of cognitive science in recent decades. It looks at mental phenomena as arising out of the bodily experience and provides a middle way out of the mind–body dualism. Further, it can bridge the gap between the subject and the environment as well.

Embodiment of the Mind

Proponents of embodied thesis argue that the embodied approach will ultimately dissolve the dichotomy between immaterial mind and a material body. They argue that mind and body are not discontinuous entities because human minds are inherently embodied (Lakoff & Johnson, 1999). Embodied cognition as a framework provides a holistic, integrated picture of a person which is closely interwoven with the world. For long, dominant views in cognitive science treated an agent’s body as peripheral to understanding the nature of mind and cognition (R. A. Wilson & Foglia, 2017). But embodied cognition emphasises that the ‘brain’, ‘rest of the body’ and ‘interaction with the environment’ are three aspects, necessary for cognitive processes. Mind is evolved as a tool to help the body in its constant interaction with the environment, and therefore abstract problem-solving is not its only job. Embodied line of thinking was evident in phenomenological thinkers like Merleau-Ponty too. For Merleau-Ponty (2002), the body is the perceiver, and perception involves both sensory and motor processes. He does not dissociate neural and motor actions for cognition. Embodied approach sees cognition as the result of active and dynamic interaction between an agent’s neural and non-neural processes. It argues that cognition is neither bounded by the brain nor by the body. Further, cognition can be even extended to the external environment (Clark & Chalmers, 1998). The embodied approach stresses the dynamic sensory–motor enaction in the environment, which gives rise to the emergence of mental processes. As described by Rowlands (2010), mental processes are embodied, embedded, enacted and extended. These four features (four Es of cognition) together create an intelligent dynamic system that includes sensory–motor activities embedded and extended into the external environment. In this kind of dynamic cognitive system, the brain, instead of having the representation of knowledge about the world and providing commands to the body, becomes a part of a broader system which includes perception as well as action.

The embodied thesis tries to explain abstract concepts in terms of bodily experience. Lakoff and Johnson (1999) hold that abstract concepts are understood metaphorically. That is, the abstract concepts that we use are embodied and have origin in a bodily experience that humans undergo in early experience. For example, intimacy is an abstract concept which arises out of closeness of the bodies of two persons. In childhood, whoever is intimate to a child is physically close as well. As a result, the abstract concept of intimacy gets developed from the physical closeness, and there are linguistic expressions using ‘closeness’ to suggest intimacy. Here, closeness between bodies gives rise to an abstract mental concept. Similarly, we understand time as motion as in expressions like ‘time moves fast’. Motion is something we perceive directly, and it is a common experience in childhood. There are many such examples of abstract concepts being understood in terms of schemas that are directly rooted in bodily experience. The bodily experience of things going inside the body can give rise to the schema of a container, which includes inside, outside and a boundary. This schema, emerged from concrete experience, further helps to understand abstract concepts like ‘love’ in expressions like ‘I fell in love’. Thus, bodily experience is primary, and the basis of much of our abstract thought and concepts. That means, mind is not an abstract realm unrelated to the physical experience but derived out of the direct experience of the body in its constant interaction with the environment.

The metaphysical framework arising out of this approach is called embodied realism (ER), and it provides a middle way between many binaries or divisions such as mind versus body or realism versus idealism, and subjectivism versus objectivism. When mind itself is understood as embodied, there is hardly any scope for maintaining a sharp division between mind and body. Similarly, ER bridges the gap between the extreme positions of realism and idealism. Realism holds that the world is independent of our mind, and our mind simply mirrors what is there in the world in an objective manner. Idealism, on the other hand, holds that reality is simply a projection of our mind. It can be clearly seen that both these views presuppose a disembodied conception of mind. ER, on the other hand, holds that mind itself is the result of the bodily interaction with the world. It means that the world certainly exists independent of our mind, but whatever we know of the world is the result of our embodied interaction. Thus, our knowledge is not independent of our experience, and therefore the mind cannot be said to be mirroring nature. This becomes a middle way between subjective and objective views as well. Objectivity is no longer a matter of being independent of the subject. On the other hand, whatever knowledge we construct is based on the interactions our bodies have with the environment. It includes even completely abstract knowledge such as logic, mathematics or even morality; they are directly or indirectly derived out of image schemas emerging from bodily experiences (Lakoff & Núñez, 2000). There are multiple pieces of evidence from cognitive science which suggest that reason uses and grows out of bodily capacities such as perception and movement. Further, notion of the subject itself is the result of this interaction. This is not extreme subjectivism either. There is indeed so much commonality among members of the same species due to similar bodily structure. That means, there is some kind of objectivity, but it is not absolute because it is relative to a species. Moreover, a constant interaction happens between the organism and their surrounding environment and ‘subject’ and ‘object’ are abstractions out of this constant interaction (Johnson, 2007). When this subject–object duality gets strengthened, the resulting strong psychological boundary acts as a barrier to appreciate the inextricable link of organism and environment.

It is important to reiterate that even abstract concepts are understood as derived from direct bodily experience with the world by means of metaphoric transformation of the concrete ones. Thus, there is no scope for anything completely disembodied. As far as relation with bodily interaction with the world is concerned, it is only a difference in the degree of involvement of bodily capacities (perception, movement) in the formation of concepts. Embodied cognition has implications for a variety of fields and inspires new avenues for research and exploration in various fields such as robotics, artificial intelligence, law, art, literature, architecture, music, visual perception, memory, language and education. Education is emerging as one of the major areas of research, where the embodied approach is gaining popularity and acceptance. By showing a middle path between binaries such as mind and body and nature and nurture, the embodied approach to cognition has got significant implications for educational practice.

Embodied Education

The embodied approach has significant implications for education because its major claim is that humans start making sense of the world or learn about the world through embodied experience. Learning primarily takes place at the level of bodily experience that we undergo in everyday life and all subsequent abstractions that we make can also be traced back to bodily experience that we undergo. This does not mean that learning is something completely different from the body or it is extracted out of the body, but it is very much embedded in the bodily experiences. Thus, embodied approach appreciates the relevance of sensory–motor interaction in learning and overall cognitive development. Embodiment theory provides a more accurate picture of human nature by bridging the gap between mind and body, nature and nurture and so on. It tries to diminish the sharp division between object and subject, and the subject is no longer alienated from the world. By treating organisms as coupled with the environment, it paves the way for looking at subjects as constantly connected with the world. As Clark and Chalmers (1998) say, such a viewpoint makes us see ourselves more as ‘creatures of the world’.

When the mind itself is embodied and extended even to the environment, there is no longer any justification for continuing the ‘banking model of education’. The mind is not a vessel to be filled in. Instead, it is something that arises out of rich interactions with the world. Hence, what is of primary importance is that children are encouraged to remain open more and more towards the environment, paying more attention to whatever takes place in and around them. Knowledge is primarily the result of interaction with the environment, and even abstract concepts are derived out of such embodied engagement. This means that the body as a whole is central for the learning process, and education should not be conceived of solely as a matter of mind. This has the potential to overcome the restricted notion of learning, where knowledge is seen as something contained in books and provided by teachers. Instead, learning becomes a continuous activity with multiple means of acquiring knowledge, including sense organs in the much larger classroom of constant engagement with the world. Further, when subjects are seen as active participants in the formation of knowledge, the whole process of education can become more student-centric. Embodied education does not give rise to the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach, and consequently, the banking model of education will not be suitable. Both nature and nurture are equally important as learning is a matter of interaction between the body and the environment. Even pre-linguistic experience can give rise to schemas which, in turn, underlie our understanding of abstract concepts. Thus, education, to ensure the complete flowering of the learning process, has to pay attention to both the body and the surroundings. This is indeed a far cry from the typical classroom setting, where learning is treated as imparting of information by the teacher based on some textbooks.

An embodied approach to education requires children to be made free to explore and observe the surroundings as well as their bodily activities, including feelings; and encouraged to spend time reflecting on their activities. The embodied approach towards education gives equal importance towards creating an apt and pleasant learning environment, where a learner can associate himself/herself emotionally with the surroundings. As Damasio (1994) argues in his somatic marker hypothesis, emotions and feelings play pivotal roles in guiding our voluntary actions. According to him, somatic markers are the bodily sensations which may increase the accuracy and efficiency of the decision-making process. Through further writings and experiments, Damasio tried to show a strong connection between bodily sensations and a rational decision process. In short, Damasio claims that brain does not act in isolation from the rest of the body (Muñoz 2017). If that is the case, then bodily sensations and emotions of the learners should be considered an important aspect of their educational activities. Hence, embodied education focuses upon creating the learning environment in such a way that it gives multiple ways to interact with the surroundings as well as to appreciate one’s own emotional state. That means, for best learning experience, an educational set-up has to be interactive and integrated with a variety of objects and people so that learners can synthesise and construct knowledge rather than filling their mind through a one-way channel of information delivery.

The embodied approach of education is also in line with the ‘constructivist model’. Constructivism is a philosophical viewpoint about the nature of knowledge, developed by Jean Piaget, who holds that ‘To know an object is to act upon it. To know is to modify, to transform the object, and to understand the process of this transformation’ (Kohler, 2008: 226). In constructivism, learning is seen as an active process in which a learner constructs his or her own subjective knowledge through sensory-motor involvement with objects. In accordance with constructivism, embodied education uses the body for experience-based learning both inside and outside the classroom. The body is treated as a tool for the construction of knowledge and carrier of knowledge too. The students with their full-body, not just mind, are placed at the centre of the educational system. This makes the learning environment one of active participation, as compared to a traditional classroom which can easily become a source of disinterestedness or boredom. The embodied approach can improve student interest in learning and encourages openness to whatever comes by.

Some of these insights have already been adopted in various classroom settings. Many schools make use of various gaming systems which may use motion sensors. It provides the opportunity of kinaesthetic learning through active participation. This type of the learning method is very useful for developing mathematical skills in children. For example, instead of simply doing the textbook assignments with papers and pen, students can be encouraged to come out and do worksheet tasks. Not only kinaesthetically, but there are studies which show that a supportive and emotive environment in the classroom plays an important role in overall learning (Bambaeeroo & Shokrpour, 2017). Education should not be understood as a discrete practice of one-way lecture delivering. Education is a collective practice of balanced verbal and non-verbal communication methods including symbols, gestures, postures, facial expressions and other environmental factors. A very simple example is that showing a face with a smile or frown can communicate the human expression more efficiently than a mere verbal explanation.

Education is understood to be a process that proceeds from concrete experiences to abstract concepts (Dewey, 1910). Concrete means anything which is tangible. Abstract things are mostly intangible such as mathematical calculations, the idea of justice and language. It is argued that while teaching anything new, it is important to start from tangible things and move towards abstract things. It helps students to build their abstract knowledge based on their experiences with concrete objects. For example, if a child does not know about a particular animal, it would be better to show them some real animals instead of telling features only. The experience gained from various sensory organs would help to conceptualise the commonly shared features of an animal and, to use the information for constructing further knowledge later on. The embodied approach encourages these kinds of learning environments, where students can use the knowledge acquired through embodied experience to understand new concepts by applying them in new situations. In the embodied learning environment, as Nguyen and Larson (2015) have argued: learners are simultaneously sensory–motor bodies, reflective minds and social beings. It also helps in enhancing the interpersonal communication among students which ultimately make children socially more active. Embodied learning paves a way for the integration of various student-centric activities and emerging technologies with the current classroom education. In these classrooms, the student–teacher cooperation also plays an important role for embodied learning. Here, tutors will not be seen as an instructor, but act like a facilitator and an environment provider for learning.

This whole discussion about the nature of the human mind, importance of body and role of environment in pedagogical practices converges on one central issue: being connected with the world. When the subject–object division is no longer seen in terms of a dichotomy, and when mind itself is understood as encompassing bodily and environmental aspects, a new avenue opens up to realise the relation between oneself and the world. As per the embodied approach, knowledge arises out of constant bodily interactions with the environment. Traditional approaches with a disembodied outlook result in alienation with the world and embodied approach provides the key to reduce this thick ‘psychological boundary’ which acts as a barrier to acknowledging the role that body and the outside world play in the learning process. This is expected to enhance learning in students through enhanced active interaction, lived experiences and more coupling with the environment. Coupling with the environment means establishing a two-way channel for the interaction. It is opposite to the mainstream teaching system, where teachers only give lectures which works like one-way channels with the minimal interaction. Further, the very idea of learning can undergo a change as it is no longer tethered to examinations or any such reward. Instead, learning can be seen as something that explores various ways for the problem. Embodied education, with its emphasis on constant focus on the body and its engagement with the world, can reduce the separation of the self with the world. This kind of ‘embodied learning’ will enable students to realise that knowledge comes in the form of interactions with the environment rather than mere memorisation of principles. Embodied education can nurture true learning, which is learning for the sake of learning and not just as a tool to achieve marks. In today’s time of global competition and pressure of achievements, an exploratory mode is overlooked in most of the schools. To make learning experiences more engaging and well rounded, schools should focus upon the integration of experiential and other body-based activities. All this requires one key ingredient to play a major role in overall education: awareness.

The key to an embodied education is awareness. Awareness of one’s own body and surroundings can facilitate embodied learning which can be done by developing an exploratory mode towards oneself and the world. It is important that the curriculum includes regular practice sessions to cultivate and enhance both kinds of awareness. A curriculum should focus on making students bi-aware (awareness of one’s body and surrounding). Students should be able to viscerally realise that they are not dissociated from the surroundings from which they derive their knowledge, but, that they are integrally related to the environment and are part of the larger whole. Since the body is always related to the environment, awareness of the body becomes important in this exercise. Extreme versions of nature and nurture debate as well as mind–body dichotomy imply sharp separation from the world. When the mind is in wandering mode, there is hardly any conscious connection with whatever is around in the present, and this underlies the thick psychological boundary with the world. Hence, the need arises to realise the connection with the surroundings and with one’s own body. Here, meditation practices, such as mindfulness are of immense importance. Jon Kabat-Zinn (2005, 11) defined mindfulness as ‘disciplined practice of moment-to-moment awareness’. Mindfulness means a moment-to-moment awareness through our conscious attention. This point of attention can be an external object, our internal thoughts, bodily sensations or environment.

There is some research to show that situating mind in a natural environment helps to restore attention (Kaplan, 1995). Educating children in natural settings can be more conducive to cultivate awareness because humans have an affinity to be attentive to nature. This will help nurture, what E. O. Wilson (1984) called biophilia—our innate love for nature. Mindfulness also involves paying attention to our thoughts and emotions without judging them. Since instantaneous judgements are not conducive for learning, practising mindfulness may help in developing pure observation and exploratory mode in students. When we practice mindfulness, our thoughts channelise on what we are sensing in the present moment. This practice makes one learn how to be in the present moment. Being in the present makes a learner attentive and receptive to the information. It is even said that mindfulness helps one to have what is called the beginner’s mind. That means one can look at whatever we encounter as opportunities for learning. Needless to say, this amounts to what is commonly called open-mindedness.

Practising mindfulness has been proved useful in reducing mind-wandering too (Xu et al., 2017), which is believed to be the default mode of mind. A person’s thought can be considered as mind-wandering if it is not related to the present task and decoupled with the surroundings. Research shows that mind-wandering accounts for almost half of our regular stream of thoughts (Killingsworth & Gilbert, 2010). We all know that mind-wandering hampers our performances and makes us do errors. For example, while listening to a lecture, a thought about food would constitute mind-wandering and may result in an inadequate comprehension of the lecture. Owing to this lack of attention, we all tend to make mistakes. A trained mind realises that being present to the world and to itself means being present to the present moment. Moreover, for best learning, it is required that students should be present in the present moment. Students should be mindful in the process of learning. This will lead students towards cognitive maturity and help to reduce the gap between body, mind and environment. This will also help students to realise that they are not dissociated from nature, but that they are part of a larger whole.

Conclusion

The way human nature is understood plays a significant role in shaping educational practices. The current dominant educational system presupposes a disembodied view of mind and results in an educational system that looks at learning as a tool for achievement. A more accurate picture of human nature which stresses the continuity between mind, body and environment has the potential to give rise to educational practices where learning flourishes in all dimensions. Though some aspects of embodied learning are incorporated in some ways, much more efforts are needed in this direction so that insights from the embodied approach to cognition can transform educational practices. Awareness of whatever happens in and around can be a key factor in this endeavour which can reduce the psychological gap between the self and the world, and can fulfil the aim of creating individuals, who are open-minded and can look at life in its totality.